A Clouded World

I was attending the ComputerWorld Executive Briefings’ seminar entitled Tech for SMEs (Catalyst for Growth) last Tuesday at AIM (Asian Institute of Management) Conference Centre. Issues tackled ranging from using Internet as the medium for growth, network security, affordable ERP for SME and trend for the 2010.Founder of Island Rose talked about how he used the power of Internet as early as 2000 to promote his business and now prided his product as being number one in the entire Philippines when it comes to cut-flower services. According to him because they sell their flowers directly to the customer without the middle-men to worry about for the additional charges, they have ensured therefore of affordable yet quality products and services to their clients.

Other speakers talked about their own products how it would beneficial to any businesses with the help of their up-to-date and cost effective technology by creating real-time solutions for an organization. A lady talked about the SAP Business One being designed specifically for Small-to-Medium Enterprises (SME) as it dominate 95% of businesses in the Philippines and in the world. While it promises scalability and reliability, I’m not impressed; I heard a lot of that.

Then came the guy from Sophos, who talked about network security, he was the last speaker so I was quite sleepy though I must say that his presentation was better organized than the other lol, I swear!

But what catches my attention was the second speaker from ePLDT; his given topic was about SMEs and Technology for 2010. And he fondly talks about the cloud computing being the next big thing in computing. How it would help reduce organization from investing on the technical aspects like purchasing a server, organized your network, and having a robust machine to ensure that the company requirements must be address anytime. He’s talking about company’s infrastructure, when truth of the matter according to him only 18% of the actual physical infrastructure for every firm is being utilized.

I have blogged about it in my previous post. Now I’ll give you more insights why it’s the buzz word in the biz community. The best thing about cloud is it’s cheap; you only pay the services you have used. It’s like electricity when you’re not using, it won’t incur you charges.

With the recent economic crises, many organizations are now adopting the cloud computing because it’s cheap; it’s everywhere and can cater on-demand transaction.

But of course despite showing its promising claims, still many have questioned about its security and the fear of losing their data. Its reliability and uptime guarantee also poses concern among IT big bosses. Sometimes in February, the giant Google being one of those who’s pioneering the cloud computing with its PaaS had encountered several outages that made the industry to worry about the cloud.

But then again, the speaker has assured; when in the cloud, no need to worry!